


Rule of Nines

by apocketfulofwry



Series: Triptych [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-02 23:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12736752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apocketfulofwry/pseuds/apocketfulofwry
Summary: Sansa is a young photographer who has to shoot Petyr Baelish - one of the richest people in the country.Nine cities. Nine years. Petyr and Sansa fall in love and lose each other over and over again.





	1. Chapter 1

_Two distinct, equal lights, should never appear in the same picture : One should be principal, and the rest sub-ordinate, both in dimension and degree : Unequal parts and gradations lead the attention easily from part to part, while parts of equal appearance hold it awkwardly suspended, as if unable to determine which of those parts is to be considered as the subordinate._

\- John Thomas Smith, _Remarks on Rural Scenery_

 

 

**Tokyo. 2017.**

 

“Could you turn towards me, please?”

_Click._

“Bend your head a little. Look straight at the camera.”

_Click._

“Yes, that’s it. That’s perfect. Hold that pose.”

_Click._

The scene is this: A hotel room in Tokyo. Deep in the heart of the business district. Many stories above the concrete jungle, this tower in the sky. They are high enough that the noise from the streets no longer reaches them. A cocoon of unnatural quiet. Outside, the great city buzzes with life. Endless arteries of highway pulsing with the forward movement of countless vehicles in orderly flow. Above and below, the trains quietly run, always on time, breaking through the surface and diving back below, their tracks bisecting the concrete scarred landscape of buildings in this neon wilderness of over nine million people.

Nine million stories.

But we are interested only in two.

He sits near the wide expanse of floor to ceiling glass that make up one side of the room. All slouched insouciance. His patrician face in profile. His bottom, encased in finely cut trousers perched near the edge of the seat. The long, lean frame of his form slanted against the unbroken curve that makes up the chair’s back and armrests. His arms are flung over the sides, boneless in relaxation. From one hand dangles a lit cheroot, a thin gray plume of smoke rising from a glowing red base. A portrait of the gentleman at leisure.

The air-conditioned dimness of the room smells predominantly of freshly laundered sheets and the dark, sweetish bouquet of burnt chocolate from the gentleman’s cigar. A deeper breath enables one to fully appreciate the clean, woodsy scent of his cologne as well as the faint perfume from the roses in the tasteful but boring flower arrangement near the door of the suite. 

She kneels on one knee in front of him, seeing him only through the viewfinder of her camera. The distance between them far greater than the physical separation of a few feet.

_Click._

_Click._

_Click._

Three snaps in rapid succession. Three taps of a heartbeat. A triptych of time folding in upon itself. She inches forward, careful to maintain the framing of the shot.

“I want you to keep looking at the camera the way you look at me when I’m not behind it.” 

A shift in his features. So subtle as to go undetected by the casual observer. The camera’s eye sees all. It misses nothing. 

 _Click._  

“Tell me again why you agreed to this.” 

 _Click._  

She shifts and leans forward, adjusting the aperture to compensate for the change in distance. Shooting in low light is the bane of every photographer’s existence. The carpet is soft and thick underneath her knee and shin.

“Does there always have to be a reason for me to do things, sweetling?” His voice is amused.

“You hate publicity, Petyr. You’ve never agreed to be photographed for any publication. Ever." 

 _Click._  

“Patently untrue. International Business Times ran a feature a month ago. I believe there were a few pieces on Forbes and the Economist previously as well.” 

“Stock photos, Petyr. Headshots and curated trash your publicist hands out. All of it sanitized and preapproved by PR.” 

“Yet here I am, baring my soul for _Vanity Fair_.” The last two words come out as a sneer, his contempt cutting her to the quick. 

“Exactly. Which brings us to the question of why.” 

_Click._

She looks up then, meeting the intensity of his stare head on. 

“Oh sweetling. Did you think I wouldn’t know?” The amusement has turned to thinly veiled rage. His smile a cold, dead thing, that does not reach his eyes.

The camera’s eye is unforgiving in the chiaroscuro. He is what some would consider a handsome man. He has thick dark hair, silvering at the temples. It lends him a distinguished air. A five o’clock shadow has begun to mar the perfection of the Van Dyke beard framing his well-formed lips, now curled into a smirk. The shadows cast by the faint room light on the hard planes of his face give him a sinister air. Yet this is the face of a man in love.

She bends her head, once more focusing on the next shot. Avoiding his gaze, eluding his question.

The camera whirrs and frames this shot: a man’s right fist with three rings on it, tightly clenched. 

The single, static image does not show us the slight tremor in the hand as its owner tries to hold on to his last vestiges of self-control. Does not show us how inside, he is slowly coming apart, undone by the continued silence from this pale slip of a girl on her knees in front of him.

\-------

 

**New York. 2008**

 

_Click._

Petyr Baelish jerks his head up from his laptop, prepared to give the intruder a thorough tongue-lashing.

The camera whirrs and frames this shot: a man’s face, a furrow between his brows showing the beginnings of annoyance, the remnants of initial surprise evident in the slight parting of his lips.

He does not expect the young woman sliding her slender form into the chair across from him. In his broad view of the park behind her, Autumn explodes in a riot of colors, leaves falling red and gold in waves. It all pales in comparison to the young girl in front of him. Wisps of her auburn hair blow gently in the breeze. Petyr thinks he could start composing sonnets, _odes_ to the hollow where her collarbones meet at the base of her neck.

Petyr does not believe in love at first sight, does not believe in angels. He most certainly does not believe in destiny. 

What he does believe in is this: This girl is quite possibly the most beautiful thing he has ever seen in his life.

She is also entirely too young for him.

“May I take your picture?”

He opens and closes his mouth, one of the few times in recent memory he has found himself at a genuine loss for words. 

“You seem to have done just that, dear.” He points out. 

“I couldn’t help it,” she gushes, giddy as a young dolphin. “You have such an interesting face.”

He quirks a dark brow upwards.

“Sorry. I haven’t introduced myself,” she grins conciliatorily as she places her camera right onto his laptop lid, by far the widest surface on the limited space of the tiny café table, and holds out her hand. Her freshness disarms him almost against his will. “Sansa Stark.” 

“Petyr Baelish,” he settles on his name as a reply instead of all the other words he’d like to say that are not considered polite in mixed company.

 _No,_ **your** _face is interesting._

_Your body is interesting._

_Fancy a fuck?_

He blinks, licks his lips, throat suddenly dry. “I’d ask you if you’d like to take a seat but you seem to have done so already.”

Her laughter is a beautiful, splendid thing. Unfettered and free, reaching into the deepest, most cynical depths of him, the worn aspects of his soul. Also against his will.

“Sorry about that. I couldn't help myself. I’m really serious. You have such an expressive face,” she insists. Her eyes are blue orbs, far bluer than the sky above them, a garish shade of baby blue upon which fat white clouds lazily drifted in clumps. “Yours is the first decent shot I’ve had in ages. It’s like your eyes and nose and mouth are Fibonacci perfect or something.”

This girl was out of her mind. _She_ , the very exemplification of Divine Proportion thought that  _he_  was Fibonacci perfect? As far as pickup lines went, this was the best one he’d been pitched yet. Straightforward. He liked that. Flirty, but nerdy at the same time. Such a unique and interesting combination.

“I’m in my final year at Cornell. Major in Photography,” she started to explain, powering up the weighty DSLR and scrolling through her shots. “My waterloo has always been Portraiture. I find landscapes, animals, buildings, heck, anything, easier to shoot than people.”

She’s starting to ramble adorably. “Of course my final exam has to be a portrait shot. My professor is a sadist. He knows I can’t do a portrait to save my life. Or pass this course, apparently. Give me animals! Puppies, kittens, horses. Hell, give me _alligators_. I can work with alligators.”

Petyr is doing his utmost best not to laugh. Her constant stream of chatter calms him. For the first time in months, his mind is quiet. The games he likes to play forgotten. He is able to focus on her and only her. 

“But people, people are so hard to shoot,” she laments. 

“Oh, I agree. I would think people would be most difficult to shoot,” he deadpans, finally joining in on the conversation. 

“Really?” The look in her eye is entirely too optimistic. He hated to do this to her.

“Murder is, after all, against the law,” he clarified. “Plus there is that pesky self preservation instinct that leads people to run or try to get you first. Hard to hit a moving target or target something trying to hit you. Also, animals, especially puppies make the most distressing noises when staring down the barrel of a gun.” 

Her mouth drops open. “Oh my god. You made a funny.” 

The corner of his lip twitches as he tries to hold in his laughter. He has so much work to do. Places to go, people to see. His phone has vibrated at least three times in the span of her short stay. He has a flight to catch. But for now, he decides to ignore the distractions of the outside, and let this world consist of but himself and the girl. 

This strange, interesting girl in this park. In this season of fate's perfection. 

“You’re the worst. Just for that, you deserve another photo, mister.”

_Click._

The camera whirrs and frames this shot: Petyr Baelish, lips quirked in a small smile that crinkles the corner of his eyes.

 ---- 


	2. This is Hardcore

 

 

**Rio De Janeiro. 2009**

 

 

This city moves to a rhythm of its own. The ground shakes beneath us, from the tempo of a hundred thousand feet, onto asphalt still warm from the fading sun. The crush of bodies extends as far as the eye can see, spilling into the streets from bars and clubs, flowing towards the Sambadrome - the tumultuous epicenter of Carnaval - before draining into the many back alleys that serve as tributaries to the main parade avenues. The massive crowd is a living organism writhing in hedonistic unison to the song of their people, a refrain that is rooted within their bones, their very beings. The true opiate of the masses.

For four days and nights Rio has let loose in a riotous revel of dancing, music, and mayhem – a final hurrah before the start of Lent.

Within the midst of this bacchanalian orgy, a lone figure moves in counter flow, white linen shirt plastered with sweat onto his lean body. His black hair still tousled from where an inebriated and fantastical specimen of manic womanhood had run her hands through it as she planted an enthusiastic kiss onto his unsuspecting lips. The warm sodium vapor glow from the streetlights turn the silver at his temples a pale shade of gold. 

She had whispered in his ear – in that mellifluous, rolling cadence that Brazilian Portuguese has – a promise of more, her room number, and pressed a key card from one of the city’s lesser-known lodgings into his hand. 

He could feel it like a burning in his pocket, fanning the fire in his loins as he pushed through and past drunken tourists and locals alike to make his way in the general direction of said hotel.

 _When in Brazil, do a Brazilian_ – Tyrion Lannister had said to him half jokingly during their check-in phone call earlier in the evening. Petyr had called him an arsehole and told the youngest Lannister to go perform an anatomically impossible act upon his person – impossible, unless one was a spectacularly gifted contortionist, though with Tyrion, who really knows?

Petyr hated when the other man proved to be right. He thrust a hand into the back pocket of his denims and pulled out the card, feeling its smooth plastic edge dig into his fingertips as he studied the emblem printed on it, trying to match it with the signage around him.

A body crashed into him from behind, pitching him forward as he dropped the key. Petyr watched in helpless fury as it was promptly kicked into the fray, before being trampled by a herd of dancers, aflame with the spirit of Samba. He felt the hard round lens of a camera dig into his ribs; saw long black hair out the corner of his eye as he whirled around to confront the oaf, the beginnings of a curse forming on his lips. 

“Oh my god I am _so_ sorry! _Desculpe_! I mean oh, shit!” A soft hand braced its owner against him as another wave of people jostled them closer together. 

 _Sansa_.

“Petyr?” The blue of her eyes, vibrant still even in the artificial illumination of the lights from the floats, from the torches carried by dancers. The blue of her eyes still carrying with it the ability to make his mind blank, his heart skip a beat.

They were pressed awkwardly against each other, an island of two in an endless rolling sea. The still point in the ever-turning world.

All around them the music rose to a roaring crescendo, the unceasing thump of drums beating faster and faster as the song built towards its climax. The crowd has been whipped into a frenzy, their energy filling the charged air with static. Petyr could feel the crackle seep into his very bones.

“What did you do to your hair?” He blurted out, all form of thought and reason out the window in her presence. His sentences, his very logic losing its structure in the face of his sudden, unexpected longing.

_Stupid._

_You blew your chance before and those are the first words out your mouth?_

_Stupid._

“I’m going by Alayne these days,” she had replied, the din from the crowd nearly drowning out her words. He could smell the faint tang of alcohol on her.

 _Alayne?_ Of all the ridiculous -- 

"Have you been drinking?" he demanded, holding her by her arms and studying her worriedly. She shrugged him off and took a step back. 

“Just a little bit c _achaça_ from one of the bars. No worries. I'm good. Say, do you want to get out of here?” she asked, holding out a hand. Wordlessly, he nods his head and grasps it.

He would follow her to the ends of the earth, if she willed it.

Grinning, she raises her camera, and takes a picture.

 _Click_.

The camera whirrs and frames this shot: An older man, a reverent expression on his face as if caught between disbelief and a fugue state. Behind him, the lights and crowd of the Carnaval parade blur together, leaving only him in sharp focus. The intensity of his gaze is what we dream of when we picture that of the faceless lovers we have yet to meet. It bores into the viewer, and we know the recipient of that passion, the hand and mind behind the viewfinder, has been born into a most extraordinary fate.

 

**Tokyo. 2017.**

 

 

The _izakaya_ was mostly empty in the early evening. A few older men in business suits hurriedly finish their dinner before braving the subway rush hour. It is a small place, of weathered wood, tucked away in one of the narrow, twisting back alleys, a couple of hundred meters away from the main thoroughfare. Access is granted through the worn sliding  _shōji_ , almost all but hidden behind an  _akachōchin, a_ large lantern that extends nearly from ceiling to floor, pressed paper now faded from the many years it has spent hanging at the entryway. It is not a place most _gaijin_ would think to look for, and only the locals who have lived there all their lives know of its existence.

These two, the dark haired man and the woman with hair the color of the autumn leaves falling outside sit with the ease of familiarity, their movements deft and sure as they ate in companionable silence, interrupted only by the sound of the camera clicking away on occasion.

Unlike most tourists, the woman does not appear to be taking photos of their food or their surroundings. Instead, she is focused on him and him alone. Taking random snaps with no particular purpose save perhaps to have him look up and fix her with a bland expression of disinterest which only serves to make her more determined to elicit a reaction from him. 

 _Click._  

The camera whirrs and frames this picture: A man, focused only on his meal. His fine, long-fingered hand gracefully picking up a piece of blowtorched hamachi with his chopsticks.

 

 

**Rio de Janeiro 2009**

 

He loved her with his hands, his tongue, his body a tool for her pleasure. His humble skin and bones made for her worship, a faith he had never dreamed of until Sansa. 

 _Sansa_.

She could be his religion, she could be his reason – if she could only be his.

“ _Oh, this is hardcore, for you make me hard. You name the drama and I'll play the part_.” Into her ear he murmured, as he pressed kisses into the curve of her neck, down to the valley between her breasts, the words of a song he loved once upon his youth in a land far across the sea. His mellifluous baritone turned lyrics into poetry as she sighed.

“ _It seems I saw you in some teenage wet dream…”_ he whispered against the pink coral of her nipple, taking it into his mouth, laving it with his tongue.

Sansa stirred restlessly beneath him, clutching at his arms. She bit at his lip as he kissed her softly, all gentleness and care, and into her he breathed, _“I've seen all the pictures, I've studied them forever. I want to make a movie, so let's star in it together.”_

At the time he had not understood how the song had been structured with layer upon layer of meaning over the obvious pornographic imagery. But in here, in this room, with this woman, he saw with crystal clarity for the first time the power behind the wording.

It was as if all his life he’d been told that tepid water was, in fact, hot. The resultant cognitive dissonance was enough to drive a man mad.

To strive for perfection in every aspect of every game that he played, in every action that he took towards towards the end result in mind, he had not accounted for Sansa.

He took a deep, shuddering breath and continued, running a hand up her side to cup a breast as his mouth descended to its neglected pair once more, “ _Leave your make-up on and I'll leave on the light. Come over here, and talk in the mic. It's going to be a hell of a night.”_

He brushed a thumb over the hardened bud and sucked the other into his mouth with long, gentle pulls, swirling his tongue around as Sansa arched her back, a shudder wracking her slender frame. _“_ _You can't be a spectator. You got to take these dreams and make them whole._ _There is no way back for you._ _”_

He could spend days in this bed, with this woman, making a sensory map of her topography, of all the places on her body which he would explore with his hands, his tongue, his very self. _“This is the eye of the storm. It's what men in stained raincoats pay for. But in here it is pure.”_

 _“_ _I've seen the storyline played out so many times before,_ _”_ he sighed, as he pushed himself up on his elbows, brushing her hair back from her face as he studied it, noting her too bright eyes, pupils blown wide, iris a thin rim of black on the periphery, the flush of arousal high on her cheeks, her breathing fast and shallow. He noted the fine tremor in her limbs, that she was holding on by barely a thread, and he had only just begun.

So enthralled is he that he fails to immediately register the split second before the change in her expression, the sudden tensing of her limbs before she flips him over, taking advantage of his surprise to swing her long, lithe body over him, pinning his hands with hers on either side of his head.

Then there is heat, and warmth, and _tightness_ , and Petyr ceases to think. All he knows and all he says is her name on his lips, a prayer to the gods he had long ago ceased to believe in. His name on hers, a benediction.

Later, as she lay asleep in his arms, he breathed in the scent of her hair and whispered; “You’ve ruined me, sweetling."

_What exactly do you do for an encore? For, this is hardcore._

\--

 

The song Petyr has butchered in misremembered phrases is _This is Hardcore_ , by Pulp.

 

\--

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For Ophelia Raine, who loves prose.
> 
> *based on this prompt by Romkole on tumblr: Sansa is a young photographer who has to shoot Petyr Baelish - one of the richest people in the country.


End file.
